Free Spares by Michael Marshall Smith Page B

keep them that way, except maybe to yank jenny or Suej or one of several others out in the middle of the afternoon, rape them, then throw them back on the pile. With rotten empty men left alone, you never can tell what they’ll do. Morality is all about being watched; when you’re alone it has a way of wavering or disappearing altogether. Ratchet knew stories about a caretaker who finally slid inside himself one long, cold night and started playing Russian roulette with the spares. He pulled the trigger for both of them, obviously, and as fate would have it the first time the hammer connected with a full chamber the gun was pointing at his own head. They say a fragment of the bullet is still embedded in the tunnel wall, and that when the caretaker’s body was found, one of the spares was licking the remains of the inside of his skull.
    I’ve also heard about complaints being made when spare hands turned out to have no fingernails left, only ragged and bleeding tips, when internal organs were found to be so bruised they were barely usable, when spares’ skin showed evidence of cuts and burns which did not tally with any official activity.
    Maybe they should have hired proper teams of professionals to look after the spares. Perhaps SafetyNet’s customers thought they did. But they didn’t. That would cut into the profit. People sometimes seem to think that letting financial concerns make the decisions produces some kind of independent, objective wisdom. It doesn’t, of course. It leaves the door open for a kind of sweaty, frantic horror that is as close to pure evil as makes no difference.
    I might have been okay if I’d just done the job I’dbeen hired to do, that of sitting and letting the droids get on with the tending of livestock. But I didn’t, and once I’d started, there was no possibility of just walking away. I’ve turned my back on a lot of situations in my life, too many. Each time you do so a sliver of your mind is left behind, cut off from the rest. This part is forever watching the past, glaring at it to keep it down, and the only way you know it’s gone is because the present begins to bleach and fade. A smell grows up around you, a soft curdled odor which is so omnipresent that you don’t notice it. Other people may, however, and it will prevent you from ever really knowing What is going on again, from ever understanding the present
    When David lost his fingers I sat him down and explained why the men had done that to him. As I talked, conscious of the smell of Jack Daniels on my breath, I looked into his eyes and saw myself reflected back, distorted by tears. For the first time in six months I wanted some Rapt, something to smooth away the knowledge the pain in his eyes awoke in me. I was the nearest thing he would ever have to a parent, and I was explaining why it was okay for people to come along every now and then and cut pieces off his body. I was honest, and calm, and tried to make him realize I was on his side, but the more I talked the more I reminded myself of my own father.
    For the next three years, two feelings shifted against each other inside me, like sleepy cats trying to get comfortable in a small basket. The first was a caged realization that I had created a situation that I had to see through, for the sake of both the spares and myself.
    The second was a hatred, for the Farms, whoever owned them, and everything they stood for. I knew something had to be done, but neither Ratchet nor I could think of what it might be.
    In the end the decision was taken out of our hands.

    On December 10th of the fifth year of my time at the Farm, I spent the morning sitting in the main room. Severalof the spares were there with me, talking, watching television, some even trying to read. Others, in various states of repair, were dotted all over the complex, wandering with purpose or wherever their rolls and crawling had taken them. I went for a walk round the perimeter at lunchtime, my breath